


Yesterday's Kiss

by TheFoolsYouSee



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27354922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFoolsYouSee/pseuds/TheFoolsYouSee
Summary: Amity finally reveals her feelings for Luz, but the human's embarrassing reaction makes things awkward between the two girls. Luz wishes she can go back and relive the moment to get it right, but after trying a magical solution to her problem she ends up stuck in the past with an Amity who has never even seen a human before.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 34
Kudos: 309





	1. Chapter 1

‘DID YOU FIND IT YET?!’

‘WHICH PAGE WAS IT?’

‘I DON’T KNOW, I WASN’T THINKING ABOUT THE PAGE NUMBERS!’

Luz lost her grip for a second and fell about a foot down the Troll’s back before her fingers managed to clutch at its fur again. But she was lucky she had, as the creature’s giant hand reached back and swiped at the spot where she’d been a second ago. It snarled and started turning itself around trying to reach her. As it spun on the spot Luz glimpsed Amity across the forest clearing, frantically flicking through the demon book.

The witchling’s hand suddenly stopped on one of the pages. ‘I’ve got it!’ she called.

‘Well, don’t wait for _me_!’ Luz leant back as the huge hand swiped at her again, her arms stretched out to keep holding on to the Troll’s fur.

Amity lifted the book up and started to read.

_‘We hear your dreadful cry,  
oh man of moss and bone,  
you’ll suffer here no longer,  
now turn ye back to stone!’_

A white glow covered the Troll’s eyes and it raised its hands to its head, giving a mighty roar. Luz kicked off its back to launch herself away from it, and landed roughly on the ground. The Troll’s feet were stumbling near to her and Luz raised her hands protectively. But just before she was stomped, a layer of stone spread over the creature’s fur and it froze, immobile.

Luz panted and got to her feet. She turned to Amity to give her a relieved grin, but saw the other girl sprinting towards her.

‘LUZ, WATCH OUT!’

Amity tackled her out of the way just as the stone Troll toppled down onto the spot where Luz had been stood.

The human raised her head from the floor and looked up at Amity; the green-haired girl was lying on top of her, fear in her golden eyes as she checked Luz was okay. The fear was quickly replaced by embarrassment at their close contact, but Luz began to laugh. She lifted Amity up by the waist as she got to her feet and spun the other girl around, both of them now laughing from the post-fight exhilaration flooding through them. Luz kept giggling as they came to a stop and looked into the face of her friend, who was still blushing but had a wide, helpless smile on her face.

Then Amity was closing her eyes and leaning toward Luz.

What happened next was pure instinct. As soon as Luz realised what Amity was about to do, she flung herself backward with a surprised yelp and fell to the floor again.

Amity stood as motionless as the fallen stone figure behind her, her arms still held out grasping the space where Luz had been. Her eyes were now filled with terror at the realisation that she’d just tried to kiss the other girl.

‘I’m sorry…’ she whispered.

Luz scrambled up. ‘No, _I’m_ sorry!’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to act like – I was just surprised, that’s all!’

But Amity was covering her face in her hands and running out of the clearing.

‘Amity, wait!’ Luz chased after her, turning her head to look through the trees as she ran, trying to spot the shock of bright green hair in the dark woods. But there was only gloom.

Luz stopped. The elation she’d just had from their victory was now replaced by a churning sensation in her stomach. She groaned and slumped down at the base of a tree, feeling a sudden rift having grown between her and her friend.

* * *

‘You’re serious?’ Willow was asking. ‘You _never_ noticed?’

‘No!’ Luz insisted. The bespectacled Witchling sitting across the cafeteria table from her gave a deep sigh and put a hand to her brow.

‘Luz, she’s not been subtle about it. She goes as red as apple blood every time you get close to her.’

‘But I had to work so hard to get her to be my friend!’

‘Yeah, at first. And guess what happens when a girl who’s only ever had the tough version of love meets someone who constantly wants to help and support them?’

Luz stared down at the table, questioning everything. She’d had plenty of crushes of her own in the past; in fact at her human school she seemed to get a crush on almost everybody. But she’d never had anyone feel that way about _her_ before. And for it to be someone as cool as Amity? Despite remembering full well what had happened in the forest the previous night, she still had trouble believing it. She raised her eyes again to see Willow looking past her, and turned to follow the witchling’s gaze.

The green-haired girl herself was stood in the doorway to the cafeteria, staring across at them. When she saw Luz looking back, Amity suddenly tensed and dashed away back down the corridor.

Luz groaned and lowered her forehead onto the table. ‘Now things are really awkward. Why did I have to act so weird?’

‘You just need to get together and talk about it,’ Willow said.

Luz lifted her head and huffed. Just the thought of doing that made the feelings of awkwardness double. She wished they could go back to how they were before, and that the previous night hadn’t even happened.

A clatter sounded across the room and the human's eyes were drawn to the source of the noise; a student had dropped their tray, their food falling onto the floor. The student sighed, but drew a glowing ring in the air with their finger and the dropped items all leapt back off the floor, reversing their arc. The tray landed back in the student’s hands and the food all flew back into place.

Luz felt a surge of hope. Maybe on the Boiling Isles, there other were ways to help her situation.

‘Luz?’ Willow asked, an almost scolding tone to her voice. ‘Are you thinking about you and Amity having a healthy, open conversation about your feelings?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Luz replied dismissively, already formulating a very different plan in her head.

* * *

The human girl wandered through the market eyeing the different stalls, without an exact idea what she was looking for. Her backup plan was to ask King if he knew about anything that could help her, but the small chaos-loving demon would be just as likely to gleefully exacerbate the situation between her and Amity. Luz turned down another aisle of stalls, and her eyes fell on a surprisingly familiar one. The little pig-like demon looked back at her from his perch on the counter of his reconstituted stall, and pointed a finger at her as she approached.

‘Oh, no you don’t!’ he cried. ‘I’ve had enough of you Owl Housians coming and ruining my businesses!’

‘Relax Tibbles,’ Luz said, raising her hands. ‘I come in peace.’ Although she _had_ accidentally flattened his stall once before with a walking house, the last time she’d met the diminutive capitalist he had shrunken her and her friends and tried to feed them to a circus of tiny monsters. But Luz decided not to bring that up. ‘I see you’ve switched to the day market.’

‘Yes,’ Tibbles folded his arms over his purple waistcoat. ‘A lot of my more… _interesting_ stock was destroyed a little while ago, if you remember.’

Luz guiltily avoided his glare and glanced around at the trinkets he had on display. ‘I don’t suppose you have anything that could help me change something?’

‘Change what?’

‘Something that’s… already happened.’

Tibble’s long ears pricked up at her surreptitious tone. ‘Ahh,’ he smiled. ‘You’re looking to alter something in your past? And you’ve not gone to our favourite outlaw Owl Lady for help, so it must be something _juicy_.’

Luz grimaced as she felt herself start to go red, but the small demon waved his hand at her.

‘I don’t care what it is, but if you’re really serious…’ Tibbles glanced around at the market, and when he looked convinced that no-one was watching them he hopped down behind the counter and went over to a cabinet, pulling off a blanket that had been covering it. Peering over, Luz saw him open a drawer and pull out a necklace with a blue, star-shaped jewel hanging from it before he came back to clamber back onto the counter.

‘This is the Pendent of Yesterday,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘It can take you back to the moment you regret and allow you to change it, and then live your life again from that moment.’

Luz looked into the blue jewel, which glimmered in the sunlight as it dangled from the string gripped in Tibbles’ paw.

‘How much?’ Luz asked. 

* * *

The necklace had a one-time use, and Tibbles had assured Luz that any changes she made would be incorporated into a single, unsplit timestream, and that there wouldn’t be a world left where she had disappeared and was never heard from again. She’d suspected that he was overcharging her as some amount of revenge, but had handed over the snail bills she’d saved from the tips she’d made making deliveries for Eda’s potion business. The pig-demon had put a spell on them that made them immune to any changes in the timeline; apparently in the new version of events, they would disappear from her pocket when she reached the moment of sale again and reappear in his moneybox. It seemed to make sense as much as Luz could follow it, and she was now sat in her room wearing the necklace, holding the string up to look at the jewel. She could go back to the fight with the troll and then when it was over and Amity tried to kiss her, she would have a normal, non-awkward reaction.

Except she still had no idea what that would be.

‘Luz!’ a voice called from downstairs. The human girl ignored it; soon she’d be back in the previous night, she could see what Eda wanted the second time around. She just needed to figure out what she’d be doing when she got there.

After a couple of minutes she heard a knock on the door, and quickly tucked the necklace into her hoodie. She looked up to huff at Eda, but froze when she saw her green-haired classmate stood nervously in her doorway.

‘Amity!’ she gasped.

The other girl smiled awkwardly. ‘Eda said to just come up,’ Amity finally said.

Luz nodded. Tension began to build as neither of them spoke or moved. The human started to feel her insides burn with the awkwardness and cursed herself for having hesitated before using the necklace.

‘I’m sorry,’ Amity broke the silence. ‘I shouldn’t have tried to… I can see you don’t like me back, and now things are different between us and it’s my fault.’

‘No!’ Luz said. ‘It’s _my_ fault, you were just… _I’m_ the one who acted weird!’ She covered her face in her hands, and heard the witchling walk over and sit next to her on the floor.

‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Amity explained. ‘I was just so happy that we beat the Troll, and that I was with you, and… and I wish I could go back and change what happened.’

Luz looked up at her with surprise. She suddenly realised that the tension between them was coming from their shared fear of what the other person was thinking – but they were both thinking the same things.

‘You know what?’ Luz said. ‘I don’t. I had no idea you felt that way, and someone cool like you liking me has never happened before. And now that it has…’

The human trailed off. Amity was gazing at her, those golden eyes looking so soft and vulnerable. Luz felt her heart tighten, which would obviously be because the already awkward situation was being made worse by the closeness.

The closeness to the very pretty girl that she cared for deeply.

The same shock Luz had felt when she’d recognised Amity’s feelings flooded through her again as she recognised her own.

She had no idea which one of them started the kiss, but once it was going she made no effort to stop it. Thoughts raced by at lightning speed, none of them remaining in her head long enough to be grasped, and all of them overwhelmed by the sensation of the other girl’s lips on hers.

After a few seconds they pulled back from each other, but as soon as they made eye contact Luz felt a hot burn spread across her face. She felt briefly fearful of her own reaction before she realised that Amity had gone bright red too. Luz giggled slightly, the awkwardness now something they were sharing rather than a barrier between them. She could even feel the burn on her face spreading down to her chest.

‘What's that?’ Amity frowned down at the spot where her hand had come to rest just below the neck of Luz’s hoodie. The human girl glanced down and realised that the heat on her chest was in a concentrated spot.

She pulled the necklace pendant out and held it up; there was now a light pulsating inside the blue jewel.

‘Yuh-oh,’ Luz said, and vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

Luz blinked her eyes open. She was stood in the forest, but it was daylight. She and Amity hadn’t been able to lure the Troll out until it had gotten dark, so why…

The human girl suddenly registered the sight in front of her; she was holding the branches of a bush aside to peer into a clearing, where two other girls were stood next to a pair of small carts and an thick, oozing puddle which streamed out of an upturned cauldron. She recognised Amity and Willow, but Willow’s Hexside uniform had the pink leggings and sleeves of the Abomination track.

‘Oh, Willow,’ Amity was saying, shaking her head patronisingly. ‘You don’t have anything to show, do you?’

Luz had to put a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp as she realised where she was, and _when_ she was. Tibbles had said to focus clearly on the moment she wanted to go back to before tapping the crystal, and she’d been thinking about the first time she’d seen Amity and how much had changed between them that they were now...

She stepped back from the bush, letting the branches bounce back into place to block her from the sight of the two witchlings. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the buzzing thoughts about what had happened moments ago, and yet wouldn't happen for weeks. Amity's hand must have tapped against the jewel under her hoodie and activated it, and now she was much further back than she’d ever intended. She needed help.

The human hurried down the forest path, away from the clearing. Eda would know what to do, even if she gave her a lecture. Where was she today? Luz cast her mind back to remember why she’d been walking through the woods when she'd seen Willow. She’d been heading home because she hadn’t wanted to…

The beach. Luz started jogging along the path that led down to the seafront as the memory came back; Eda had tried to get her to help scavenge the giant carcass of a trash slug that had washed ashore, which hadn’t been the girl’s idea of a magic lesson. All she’d gotten out of it was a slimy little ball of-

Luz suddenly stopped as she heard a rumble back the way she’d come. She spun around in horror, seeing vines thrash between the trees in the distance. _She was meant to be there_.

She ran back the way she’d come, but the vines were already shrinking away. She bolted off the path through the trees, trying to reach Willow before her plant-based outburst of anger had finished and she missed the moment that led to her eventually becoming a student at Hexside. She stumbled through the greenery and her foot caught on a root, sending her tumbling forward out of the bushes and crashing into a cart.

‘Hey, watch where you’re-!’

But the annoyed cry was cut off by a metallic clank as the cauldron toppling off the cart. Luz looked up from where she’d fallen and saw the large container roll towards a pond, its lid dropping off and its purple contents spilling into the water.

‘NO!’ Amity shrieked, and rushed forward to the water’s edge as the Abomination mixture started to dissipate. She desperately tried to scoop the glutinous purple mass back into the cauldron, but chunks of it had already floated away across the pond. She turned the cauldron upright and stood back from it.

‘Abomination, rise!’ she cried desperately. A humanoid shape started to rise out of the cauldron, but pond water was trickling through it and its diluted substance shuddered and collapsed back into the container.

Amity turned to Luz, furious. ‘You _ruined_ it!’

‘I’m so sorry, Amity!’ Luz said as she scrambled to her feet, but her words just seemed to make the other girl more agitated.

‘How do you know my name? Who are you? What are _those_?’

Luz quickly put her hands over the round, human ears Amity was pointing at. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t explain,’ she said as she backed away. ‘I’ve got to go, sorry!’

She turned and ran back towards the clearing, her eyes darting around to try and spot the vines. She burst through the bushes to the spot where Willow had been, but all that was left were a few purple streaks on the round where it looked like the girl had scooped her own spilled mixture up before pushing her own cart away. Luz looked around to see if there was a trail she could follow, but there was nothing.

She was too late.

* * *

The human girl paced in a spot by the back of the school. She’d considered going in when she’d originally ran up to the Hexside front courtyard, but had then remembered when Principal Bump had tried to dissect her the _first_ first time she’d been found inside. Without anyone to vouch for her now, she actually might not make it out alive.

She heard the scream of the school bell and went to peer through a window; the doors to the classrooms opened and students spilled out into the corridor. She scanned the faces and spotted Willow walking along dejectedly, Gus at her side.

‘It’s okay Willow!’ the short, dark-skinned boy was saying. ‘If you work hard I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it.’

Willow shook her head. ‘It didn’t even come out of the cauldron! The Professor said if I couldn’t manage basic manifestation then he’d talk to Principal Bump about whether I even belong at Hexside.’

Luz ducked her head down as they walked past, her heart aching at the sound of Willow’s old self-doubts. She peeked back in to see whether her two friends were headed towards a quiet spot where she might be able to get their attention.

_‘You!’_

Luz turned her head to the sound of the voice; Amity was stood in the corridor pointing angrily at her. The human shrank back, but the green-haired witchling darted towards the window, opened it, and leapt out onto the grass outside

‘You made me fail my presentation!’ she seethed as she rounded on Luz. ‘I _never_ fail an assignment!’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it!’ Luz shrank back against one of the trees that circled the school building. ‘I know you like being the top of the class.’

Amity’s enraged eyes widened. ‘How do you know that? Who _are_ you? Is… is that a _Pendant of Yesterday_?!’

Luz looked down at the jewel that was still hanging around her neck. She tried to sidestep away from the tree out of Amity's reach, but the other girl grabbed her.

‘You’re not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and where you came from,’ she snarled.

Luz gulped. Her mind raced, trying to come up with a plausible explanation. All her years reading and writing fantasy fiction had made her ready for this moment.

‘My name is Luz and I’m a human and I came from the future and I wanted to change something, but it turned out I didn’t even need to change it, and I ended up coming back too far and now I’ve ruined everything and I don’t know what to doooo!’

...Maybe she wasn't _quite_ ready, she admitted to herself.

Amity blinked at the barrage of words and let go of Luz's collar stepping back. ‘You’re a human?’ she frowned. ‘How did you even get to the Boiling Isles?’

‘There was an owl and a portal, and a-’

Luz suddenly heard a familiar, grumbling voice coming from around the corner of the building. She quickly grabbed Amity and pulled her into the treeline.

‘Hey!’ the other girl protested. ‘What are you-’

‘Shh!’ Luz peeked out and saw Eda stomping past.

‘Where is that kid?’ the witch was muttering to herself. ‘If she makes me lose this bet, I’ll put her on Hooty-scrubbing duty for a month.’

Luz waited until the grey-haired woman had rounded the next corner before letting go of Amity and stepping out of the trees. She sighed heavily and sank down to sit on the grass, remembering how much resentment her mentor had for the school. She wouldn’t care about some student she’d never met failing a class, and would probably see Willow being kicked out of Hexside as a win for the girl. Luz realised she and Eda still hadn’t really gotten to know each other at this point, and even if she told her about the pendant Eda would probably just give her a scolding for playing with something she didn’t understand and use her knowledge of the future to pull a couple of extra scams.

‘So you came back in time using that?' Amity asked, pointing to the necklace. 'And we know each other?'

Luz nodded ‘We’re friends.’

The witchling huffed. ‘I never thought I’d be friends with such a clumsy oaf.’

The human girl looked up at the green-haired one in surprise. It seemed so long ago that her friend had last used such a disdainful tone with her. But here she was again, the old Amity, looking narrowly down at her through her eyeliner like she was something unpleasant stuck to her shoe.

‘Today was supposed to go differently,' Luz said sadly. 'But now Willow’s going to be kicked out of school.’

‘She is?’ A look of concern had escaped through Amity’s icy expression. She glanced down at her feet awkwardly, but then shook her head. ‘Well, I’ve done everything I can to encourage her, maybe she’s just not good enough for Hexside.’

Luz frowned. 'Is that really what you thought you were doing?'

'Y-yeah.' Amity shifted uncomfortably. 'I'm always telling her to keep at it and try harder.'

'And calling her "Half-a-Witch Willow", that wasn't just to make you feel better about yourself?'

The green-haired girl spluttered and folded her arms. 'I feel _fine_ about myself, you obviously don't know me as well as you think you do.'

‘I know you only act cold because you don’t want to be seen as weak. That's what you said in your diary.’

‘You _read my diary?!’_

Luz put her face in her hands. She was just making things worse and worse.

‘Why did I even get that stupid pendant?’ she groaned, dropping her hands and staring despondently at the ground.

‘Look,’ Amity said tersely after a pause. ‘If you had never come back, you wouldn't have crashed into me and ruined my Abomination, right?’

Luz glanced up at her. ‘Your Abomination would be fine,’ she said carefully, knowing how upset the other girl would be about how the _rest_ of the day had originally gone.

Amity sighed. ‘Then maybe we can find a way to put everything back how it was. Where did you get the pendant from?’

* * *

After returning to the Owl House, Luz had convinced Eda that she’d spent the morning wandering in the forest; the witch had gloated about something to King for the rest of the day, refusing to call him anything other than ‘Mr Wiggles’. But after they had all gone to bed, Luz had crept out of her room and out the front door, gently closing it so as not to wake Hooty. She was now walking through the dark woods holding a glowing ball of light in her hand, making her way to the spot where she’d arranged to meet Amity.

The green-haired girl was leaning against a tree trunk, dressed in her long black top and purple leggings, her bag hung over her shoulder. She looked up as Luz approached and frowned.

‘How are you doing that?’ she asked, gesturing to the hovering orb. ‘I thought humans couldn’t do magic.’

‘Oh, I’ve got some secrets of my own,’ Luz replied with a smile and a wink. But Amity just grimaced.

‘Come on, the night market should be open by now,’ the witchling said, and they made their way towards the town. Luz glanced over at the other girl, who was staring resolutely ahead.

‘So,’ she asked. ‘You got to book four of _The Good Witch Azura_ yet?’

Amity’s head whipped round in surprise, and she blushed. ‘Can we not do this?’ she asked with a huff.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s… weird having you know things about me.’

‘Oh, sorry.’ Luz kicked her feet along the ground as she walked. ‘I can tell you some things you find out about me, if you want. Like how I got kicked out of my school prom for dressing like an otter, and I’m lactose intolerant, and-’

‘Look,’ Amity snapped, cutting her off. ‘I’m helping you, but if this works then everything we're doing now is going to be undone, and whatever weird set of circumstances that made us friends will happen again. So let’s just get on with it.’

The witchling sped up her pace to walk on ahead, leaving Luz to silently follow behind.

* * *

Gaunt, cloaked figures walked between the stalls of the night market, lit by eerie purple light coming from the square’s tall lamps. Luz noticed Amity hug her arms nervously to herself as she eyed the more grotesque items that were available to purchase after dark. The human scanned the stalls and spotted one with a large, horned skull on its roof, the stall itself covered with dark curtains. She remembered the sight of it being crushed as she, Gus and Willow had piloted their walking house through the market on the night of their Moonlight Conjuring.

‘There,’ she pointed at it.

Amity gave her a slightly fearful look. ‘W-Who did you say you bought it from again?’

‘Believe me, being scary isn’t the problem with him,’ Luz said, and guided the tense girl towards the stall. The human lifted its curtain, which suddenly sprang out of her hand to roll up at the top.

‘Welcome, welcome, welcome!’ Tibbles cried cheerfully as he hopped up onto the counter. ‘I’ve got-’

But he stopped when he saw Luz holding up the necklace in her hand, and sighed.

‘No refunds,’ he said.

‘I don’t want a refund,’ Luz said. ‘I just want to make it so that I never used it in the first place.’

‘Whichever future version of me you bought that from must have told you that I can’t take any responsibility for the choices you make after our transaction is complete,’ Tibbles retorted.

‘But if I can go forward again-’

‘Go _forward_?’ Tibbles laughed. ‘It’s the Pendant of _Yesterday_ , it can’t go forward! And even so, you’ve changed things now. You’d only be going forward into the future that leads on from this version of events.’

Luz’s heart sank. Maybe she could buy another one, go back to try and meet Willow again and try and remember to do everything exactly the same as she’d originally done. But she might end up making things even worse.

A surprised squeal brought her out of her troubled thoughts; Amity had grabbed Tibbles by the scruff of his waistcoat.

‘Listen, you little pig-man,’ she intoned. ‘We need to put things back the way they were, where our friend…’ She glanced at Luz before quickly continuing, apparently changing tack. ‘…where I never have my class project ruined! How do we undo things?’

‘I don’t know!’ Tibbles insisted, struggling in the girl’s grip. ‘I mean, they’re single-use, so the jewel is locked with the information of where you originally came from, maybe destroying it would trigger a reset. It’s not easy to break that kind of gem, but…’

The little demon’s tail snaked across the counter and picked up the handle of a shining, silver mallet.

‘…I just so happen to have a few pieces of rare and powerful weaponry,’ he grinned.

Amity let go of his collar, and Tibbles straightened his waistcoat fussily. She reached into her bag, pulled out her purse, and dropped an indiscriminate wad of bills on the counter. The demon dropped the mallet from his tail as he hungrily snatched them up, and Amity picked up the metal item and held it out to Luz.

‘Get it over with,’ she instructed.

Luz took the mallet and put the necklace on the counter, but hesitated before raising the small weapon.

‘Is it really going to work?’ she asked, looking up at Tibbles.

‘Don’t ask me, I just sell them!’ the small demon said as he finished his incantation on the bills and slid them into a drawer. ‘If you wanted to give yourselves the best chance, you’d have to recreate the moment you first used it, in the exact same place, in the exact same circumstances.’

‘Fine, we’ll do that,’ Amity nodded, and looked over at Luz for confirmation. But the human girl was grimacing awkwardly.

‘Y-You’re, uh…’ she stammered, ‘...you’re _really_ not going to like this.’


	3. Chapter 3

Amity was stalking ahead as they walked back through the forest from the night market. Then she stopped and span around on the spot to glare at Luz.

‘ _Really?’_ she fumed.

‘Yes,’ Luz repeated.

Amity scoffed, and continued walking forward, her fists bunched at her sides. Then she turned around again.

‘But _you?_ Some human who wanders into people and breaks their stuff and reads their diaries and… dresses up like an otter, whatever an otter is?!’

Luz shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me to explain it, you tried to kiss me first.’

Amity scoffed again and folded her arms. ‘How do I even know you’re telling the truth?’

‘I guess you don’t,’ the human girl sighed. ‘There was a whole journey of connection and discovery and opening up, and those feelings must have started somewhere along the way.’

‘Well I definitely don’t have those feelings _now!_ ’ Amity huffed.

Luz felt a sting in her heart. For her, it had only been hours since she'd realised how she felt about Amity. But now the girl who'd apparently been pining for her had been replaced by a version who looked appalled by the idea of kissing her.

'It's like you said,' Luz tried. 'Whatever we do now is going to be undone, so maybe we can just... make it quick.'

Amity balked at the idea. 'Eww, no. You're basically a stranger, and I've never even-'

She stopped talking, going red, and turned away.

‘You know what? That little pig demon was right, this was _your_ choice to play with the past, now you have to live with it.’

There was a pause.

‘Okay,’ Luz said softly.

Amity looked back, surprise in her eyes from the lack of an argument.

‘I’m not going to ask you to do it if you don’t want to,’ the human said, keeping her eyes down. ‘I’ll carry on with things as they are, and find a way to make things up to Willow somehow.'

She walked past Amity, but hesitated after a few steps.

'I hope we still end up being friends,' she said without turning around, trying to hide the break in her voice. 'Even if it is just that.’

Luz walked away into the trees, waiting until she was far enough away to be out of sight before wiping the tears from her eyes.

* * *

Amity kept her mind on her school work for the next couple of days, having to work hard to make up for her botched presentation. She hadn’t seen the weird, aggravating human again since they’d gone to the night market and was trying to forget all about her and the future she claimed to come from. Amity had even stopped reading the fourth Azura book which she’d been halfway through; it felt like it was somehow part of the path that led to a version of herself who liked kissing humans. When she'd finished tidying up the kid’s section of the Bonesborough library after her storytelling session one afternoon, she glanced over at the secret entrance to her little hideaway as she walked past it, but continued on. She’d keep coming to the library to read to the children until the extra credit boosted her grades back up, but after that perhaps it was time she found other hobbies.

After leaving, she walked briskly down the street that led out of the centre of town, but paused when she registered an odd noise coming from a side-alley. She went over and peered cautiously down it.

Willow was sitting behind a discarded pile of crates, crying.

Amity felt frozen, unable to walk away even when the other witchling looked up and spotted her.

‘Amity!’ the embarrassed girl quickly wiped her eyes and tried to steady her breaths.

‘Hi Willow,’ Amity said awkwardly. ‘Are you okay?’

Willow didn’t reply, and Amity cringed at her own stupid question. But now that she'd spoken it was too late to leave.

‘Principal Bump told my dads I wasn’t cut out for Hexside,’ the bespectacled witchling sniffed. ‘I’m not allowed to go to class anymore.’

Amity felt a pang of guilt. She tried to push it aside: after all, she’d made sure her parents hadn’t gotten Willow blocked from joining the school in the first place. After that, the girl’s performance was her own responsibility. But the ache sat stubbornly in Amity's chest.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said. ‘I know you used to like plants, could you ask to switch tracks instead?’

‘What’s the point?’ Willow sighed. ‘I’m just gonna fail at that too.’

Amity thought back to all the times she’d belittled Willow in order to push her away, at first to appease her parents, but then to avoid ruining her reputation with association with a weakling. At least that’s what she’d told herself. If she was truly honest, reminding someone else how weak they were really _had_ been a way to make herself feel strong.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, knowing it would never be enough. And as the other girl wiped away more escaping tears, Amity knew there was only one thing she could do.

She gave a heavy, infuriated sigh.

* * *

Luz toyed with the jewel hanging around her neck. She’d avoided touching it directly at first, unsure what it would do if it made contact with her fingers even if it was supposedly no longer active. But after accidentally brushing it a few times with no effect, she’d developed a habit of fidgeting with the gem. She wore the necklace at all times, normally keeping it hidden under her hoodie in case Eda or King recognised it. She’d have to tell them eventually; every time she spotted Eda swigging the elixir that kept her transformations into the Owl Beast at bay, the human knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up her ignorant act for much longer. But then it would all come out, and she'd would have to reveal who’d cursed Eda, and she had no idea what the fallout from _that_ would be.

Luz rolled over on the couch, hugging her arms to herself. This would all be a little easier if she had someone to talk to, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to seek out Willow or Gus, and right now there was no way she’d be welcomed by –

The front door swung open.

‘Luuuuuuuz!’ Hooty called out shrilly. ‘There’s someone here who says they’re your friend, but I know all your friends live here, and you’d _never_ keep a secret second life from me, right?’

Luz raised her head up from the couch and peered round the doorway to see who was there.

‘Amity!’ she gasped as the green-haired, tense-looking girl stepped inside.

‘Oh okay!’ Hooty said. ‘I guess maybe we’re not at the level I thought we-'

But Amity had slammed the door shut, her eye still twitching slightly from the grating pitch of the owl’s voice.

‘You’ve still got it, right?’ the witchling asked.

* * *

Luz sat herself down on the floor of her room, lining herself up next to Amity as much as she could remember.

‘So we were like this?’ Amity asked.

‘Yeah,’ Luz replied. ‘And you were saying you were sorry you tried to kiss me, and I was saying I’d never had someone like me like that before, and then I had kind of an internal revelation, and then… then we k-kissed.’

Both girls kept their eyes on the floor for a nervous moment.

‘You, uh, you got it ready?’ Luz asked.

Amity raised the mallet. ‘Yeah.’

Luz nudged the necklace that was lying on the floor between them. As Amity had been the one to activate the jewel originally, they’d thought it best that she be the one to break it just to make sure things were as similar as they could be.

‘So what was it that made you change your mind?’ Luz asked, as much to fill the silence as anything.

‘I talked to Willow,’ Amity replied. ‘She’s... not in a good place right now.' The witchling gave Luz an uneasy glance. 'Do you know about what happened between me and her?’ Luz nodded, and Amity looked away again, guilt covering her face. ‘Where you come from, did I ever tell her I’m sorry?’

‘Yeah, you did,’ Luz smiled. ‘You two are friends again now. Or, you will be.’

‘Oh!’ Amity blinked in surprise, and frowned a little. ‘Even with Boscha and Skara and the others?’

‘You decided you don’t need the approval of popular people and went with the friends you actually like.’

The witchling looked down at the floor again. ‘Your Amity seems very different from me,’ she said quietly.

Luz took hold of the other girl’s hand. ‘You’re that person too. I think you just need someone to believe in you, that you can be a good friend. Maybe that’s what helped you to start being one.’

Amity raised her head and gazed softly into Luz's eyes; the familiar warmth had now returned to her face. After a prolonged moment of stillness, they both leaned toward each other, and for the first and second time the two girls kissed.

‘Uh… Amity?’ Luz said after another pause.

‘Yeah?’ the slightly dazed-looking witchling replied.

‘You forgot to break it.’

Amity glanced down at the mallet in her hand, and the still-intact necklace on the floor. ‘Oh. So we have to-’

‘-do it again, yeah.’

Amity put her face in her hands and groaned. When she looked up at Luz again, her old glare had returned.

‘I’d better _really_ like you,’ she muttered irritably, and leaned in again.

Luz kissed her back, her heart racing once more at the now-familiar taste of the other girl's lips. After a few seconds she started to wonder if Amity was having trouble remembering where the necklace was. But then there was a shatter, and a loud crack.

* * *

Luz felt herself falling, and quickly grabbed at the object in front of her. Her hands gripped fur, and she suddenly swung to the side as the creature she was holding onto twisted around. She looked around at the scene spinning around her, and in the gloom of the night saw Amity stood across the clearing holding a book.

She was back in the fight with the Troll.

‘I’ve got it!’ Amity's voice came.

‘Well don’t wait for _me!_ ’ Luz yelled, and then laughed when she realised it was the exact thing she’d said the first time. Then she remembered what happened next and quickly leant back, narrowly avoiding the Troll’s hand swiping at her. She clutched the fur tightly as she heard the other girl’s voice call out across the clearing.

_‘We hear your dreadful cry,  
oh man of moss and bone,  
you’ll suffer here no longer,  
now turn ye back to stone!’_

When the words were done Luz jumped back from the Troll and rolled across the grass. When her momentum had stopped, she quickly scrabbled back further from the creature as it stumbled around, clutching its head, its eyes glowing. Stone started to spread over the Troll's fur, and soon it was completely covered and immobile. Luz notice it begin to topple, but this time she’d put enough distance between herself and the statue that it landed well away from her with a crashing thud. She remained sat on the ground, waiting for anything else to happen that she might have forgotten about, and then heard Amity running over to her.

‘Are you okay?’ the witchling asked as she knelt down next to Luz.

‘Willow!’ Luz cried.

‘No, _Amity_ ,’ Amity said with a concerned frown.

‘No, I mean, does Willow still go to Hexside?’

‘Yes, why wouldn’t she?’

'And you like me, don't you?'

Amity suddenly blushed. 'Y-yeah,' she said with an awkward laugh. 'I mean, you're alright I guess, we don't have to make a whole thing about it.'

Luz breathed a sigh of relief. She put a hand to her neck, but there was nothing there. She had no idea why the pendant had sent her back here instead of to the moment when she'd first used it. Maybe it had been all that time she'd spent after she'd first bought it thinking about how she would change things here. Or maybe it was just a gift. And now Luz didn’t want to change a thing.

She pulled Amity into a hug, laughing ecstatically. The other girl lost her balance and they fell back onto the grass, but then the witchling started laughing too. When their giggling fit was over they sat up again on the grass; the human girl looked into the beaming face of her friend, whose eyes held shy but joyous affection. Luz felt her heart leap as she realised that they were now finally together, both feeling the same way about each other. She leaned forward.

What happened next was pure instinct. As soon as Amity realised what Luz was about to do, she screamed in terror and kicked out with her legs, and the human went flying into the bushes.

Luz felt thorns digging painfully into her skin through her clothes and wriggled free, tumbling out the other side of the bush she'd landed in.

‘LUZ I’M SO SORRY! _’_ Amity's mortified cry came from the clearing, and the bush branches were pulled aside as she hurried through and knelt down again next to the human girl. ‘I didn't mean it, just wasn't expecting you to-’

But Luz was lost in hysterical gasps of laughter. Soon Amity couldn’t help but join her as the human tried and failed to get to her feet, the spasms rocking her body.

‘You got me right in the ribs...' she wheezed. '...laughing hurts so much...' But this just made them both laugh harder.

After a few minutes they finally recovered and sat panting for breath, the tears on their faces glistening in the moonlight.

And then they were kissing each other.


End file.
